Voting for a Living

Hundred dollar car note
Two hundred rent
I get a check on Friday
But it's already spent
--Huey Lewis & The News

Six years ago, then presidential candidate Mitt Romney noted that nearly half of all Americans pay less in taxes than they receive in transfer payments from the government. His primary point at the time was that it would be difficult for most of those people to support political platforms grounded in tax cut policy because voting for lower taxes would mean voting for lower transfer payments.

Fast forward to today. The fraction of all Americans receiving more in transfer than they are paying in taxes has now surpassed 50%. Mises observed that once the majority of a voters in a democratic system receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes, they will demand ever more wealth transferred to them from the minority of remaining producers. Politically, the wealth of the minority is forcibly extracted to subsidize the majority.

Rather than working for a living, people realize they can vote for a living.

A fundamental problem with democracy is thus revealed. How is it possible to limit size and scope of government when elections are determined by majority vote, and when increasingly more voters act as principals contracting with strong armed government agents to confiscate resources from ever smaller minority groups on the principals' behalf?